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Anxiety pervades the financial world, but in Hollywood box office returns remain strong and the big studios, at least in the short term, have the funds in place to deliver their blockbusters. But the credit crunch is like a dark cloud threatening future productions.

"Things that have been in the pipeline, in development, will be put on hold, shelved possibly, although nobody really wants to talk about it," says Tiernan Ray of Barron's Online. "They say everything is green lighted, no changes, but I am sure they are looking at some of the budgets and saying things will have to be smaller or put on hold, especially for some of the smaller studios."

Given the financial stringency, at least one Oscar winning movie star would be willing to lower their price to appear in a film that was struggling with its budget.

"Yes, definitely," says Rachel Weisz. "I'm no prophet but I have a feeling that maybe what's going to happen is you have to pay an actor $20 million to make a movie and I think actors' fees are probably going to shrink. I think that is what's going to happen."

There's gloom among some directors. Low budget independent productions were already badly hit before the financial crisis. Top director Steven Soderbergh has made many independent films. He was far from confident even before the credit crunch took hold.

"I don't know anybody who is taking their disposable income and buying entertainment stock with it," he says. "Frankly it's not a great business. The margins aren't that good considering what the expenses and the revenues are."

The nightmare on Wall Street could have an impact on film content, too. The financial crisis has already thrown up some figures who could become protagonists in Hollywood films – a case in point being US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the so-called Wall Street enforcer. In fact the financial turmoil could bring forth a slew of new movie stories.

"Hollywood is looking at making a follow up to Oliver stone's film 'Wall Street'," reveals Variety reporter Grady Max. "That sort of epitomizes the 80's greed-is-good decade. I am sure sober reflection [will reveal] that perhaps greed wasn't such a good idea.

"You are also going to see it on TV, because that just moves much faster, the production cost are lower. So you're going to see this everywhere. People will be looking at Henry Paulson, the secretary of Treasury, all these people, and they're going to be turning into these motion picture icons and heroes and villains. That is all going to be shaking out through 2009."

Hollywood could find it can make money with entertainment offering moviegoers a distraction from harsh economic reality. In fact, it may already be happening. During the last two weeks one of the top US box office attractions has been 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua', a film chronicling the adventures of a dog with a diamond necklace on holiday in Mexico being pursued by a dog-napper.